Semiconductors, or integrated circuits (IC's), are found in virtually every electrical product manufactured today. IC's are used not only in very sophisticated industrial and commercial electronic equipment, but also in many household and consumer items such as televisions, clothes washers and dryers, radios, and telephones. As products become smaller but more functional, there is a need to include more IC's in the smaller products to perform the functionality. The shrinking of cellular telephones that also function as cameras, internet access devices, and music players is one example of how more and more capabilities are incorporated into smaller and smaller electronic products.
As the demand for semiconductor devices with low-cost, high performance, increased miniaturization, and greater packaging densities has increased, Multi-Chip Module (MCM) structures have been developed to meet the demand. MCM structures have a number of dies and other components mounted within a single integrated circuit package. The number of dies and other components can be mounted in a vertical manner, a lateral manner, or combinations thereof.
One such approach is to stack one die on top of another and then enclose the stack of dies in one package. The final package for a semiconductor with stacked dies is much smaller than would result if the dies were each packaged separately. In addition to providing a smaller size, stacked-die packages offer a number of advantages that relate to the manufacturing of the package, such as ease of handling and assembly.
In a stacked-die arrangement, the dice are sequentially coupled, typically with automated wire-bonding equipment employing well-known thermal compression or ultrasonic wire-bonding techniques. During the wire-bonding process, the head of a wire-bonding apparatus applies a downward pressure on a conductive wire held in contact with a wire-bonding pad on the die to weld, or bond, the wire to the bonding pad on the die. In many cases, stacked dice can be fabricated faster and less expensively than several semiconductors, each having a single die, which perform the same functions. The stacked dice approach is beneficial because of the increase in circuit density, improvement in signal quality of embedded interconnects, and achieved within the integrated circuit package.
While a stacked-die arrangement may produce a more efficient package structure, the process is subject to yield fall-out due failed components in the stack. A single weak or broken coupling can cause the entire package to be inoperative. Many of the MCM structures that are needed today require the addition of integrated passive devices (IPD's), such as resistors, capacitors, or inductors.
Thus, a need remains for an integrated circuit packaging system that reliably and economically produces a system-in-package (SIP) device. In view of the continued pressure to incorporate additional functions in smaller packages, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems. In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to save costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures, adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.